The Second Cut is the Deepest
by BruisedSmile
Summary: What if Wild at Heart had ended differently?


**The Second Cut Is the Deepest**

_Knock, knock._

Willow whispered the words inside her head in time to the touch of her knuckles against the wood. It felt funny. Wrong. She had knocked on his door so many times, out of habit and courtesy, but this was the first time she really felt like she was asking permission. The first time she thought she may not be welcome.

She instantly reproached herself. _She_ wasn't the one in the wrong here! Willow tried to hold on to the righteous anger, she really did. It felt safe and solid. After all, it was the expected emotion for someone in her position. She was allowed to hate him. But the tighter she tried to grip it, the more the feeling slipped through her fingers, leaving her at the mercy of her far less reasonable emotions. She didn't know what she felt. No, that wasn't quite right. She felt far too many things, in such tangled and endless loops that she feared her head would split apart. The last twenty-four hours had left her painfully broken and more exhausted than she had thought humanly possible. So drained that she felt as if she'd finally fallen victim to the insatiable vamps their town was known for.

Her fingers trembled against the door handle. But no; her fate was to be quite different.

She clenched her eyes shut as the same taunting face swirled in front of her again; low cut top revealing the raw slashes across her collarbone that she wore with some kind of sick pride. The smug glint in her eyes as if she knew how Willow tried to force away the image of Oz - _her_ Oz - inflicting those marks of lust and possession upon the singer's body. The dark threat in her sultry voice as she mocked the witch's inability to curse them; to _'play rough'_ and reap the revenge that she so wanted; to hurt them like he had hurt her. Surely that was fair? Surely she deserved that glimmer of vengeance. Was she weak for letting her love break her resolve? The memory of just how close she had come flickered into her mind, causing a sickening chill to rock her stomach.

She recalled every gleam of danger in her false smile. The hunter and the prey, that was all she saw. A weak distraction that needed to be destroyed in order to claim what she wanted, what she believed was rightfully hers. _Her _mate. That was nature and they were still wild animals deep down, as she had so forcefully reminded them both. _'You have to kill'__._ And she was ready to. More than that, she had actually relished the savage beast she could become. She couldn't be more different from Oz, Willow thought vehemently. He could never belong to her. Oz didn't belong _to_ anyone.

She remembered how the she-wolf had smirked as she found Willow's breaking point. It was funny that as the sun dropped closer to her inevitable death, the love and hurt from Oz's betrayal had filled her thoughts more than any fear she should have held that these were very possibly her last moments alive.

With a deep breath, Willow snapped back to her hand that was still resting on the handle, waiting for confirmation to move. Yet she hesitated. She knew she needed to see him. They had to talk. They had to find a way through this…

The previous night had passed in a blur of hysterical tears. She could only curl up against Buffy as her best friend hugged her tightly, rubbed her back, kissed her forehead and tried in vain to calm her down. She didn't know when she had realised they were back in their dorm room but Willow had no memory of getting there. Her head swam, her limbs felt numb from the tears and eventually she did quieten, as her body became incapable of enduring her grief.

Her next real memory was having the warm covers of her bed pulled up over her and finding that her shoes had been removed. Her red and raw eyes felt too heavy to open, so she had buried her face into the pillow and lain quiet but for the occasional soft whimper that escaped her shivering form.

At some point, when she must have been giving a convincing impression of sleep, she heard light footsteps carefully cross the room. A sliver of invasive hall light fell across the carpet for a second, before the door clicked shut gently behind her roommate. She remembered wondering briefly where Buffy was going. Maybe to patrol? Willow could understand that urge somewhat. If she had any energy left and any will to use it, she would have been grateful for the opportunity to smash something into a hundred broken pieces; like he had already done to her. Had she gone to tell Giles and Xander what had happened? Would she ask to crash with one of them? Great, she had driven her own roommate from their dorm.

But then an even more grievous thought occurred to her foggy brain. Maybe she was going to check on _him_. Willow rolled over and groaned into the pillows that swallowed her face, almost wishing they would suffocate her. But she still couldn't sleep. So she had lain awake through every passing hour of darkness, sobbing quietly as somewhere down below her window and miles from Stevenson Hall, a bloodstained Ozwolf was drugged and unconscious and safely locked up again.

At one point she had flung off the smothering bedcovers, unable to bear being so close to his smell any longer. Stumbling and rubbing an arm across her stinging eyes, she had climbed onto Buffy's bed instead. There she huddled against the pillows and locked her knees under her chin, retreating as far as possible from her side of the room where his scent still shared hers. It was so strong…

Willow shook her head and forced her vision back to the door in front of her. How long had it been since she had knocked? Less than a few seconds probably. Her eyes flickered up from her poised fingers at the few inches of wood that physically separated them. Child's play compared to the great, daunting crevice that had cracked the ground from under them in the space of mere days. Even as she stood there, she could feel it widening still; the crumbling rock slipping from under her feet, forcing her further and further back.

There was so much waiting on the other side of that door. Things she wasn't really prepared for -- everything that would ultimately save or destroy her. Fear curdled in her stomach and she swallowed hard. Willow had known she would come to him; knew somehow that she was urgently needed here, that this was where she was meant to be. But she still couldn't move. Her instinct seemed to recoil in unease, as if knowing she would find something very wrong in the room beyond; something she hadn't anticipated in all the scenarios she had run through in her head.

But she had to see him. She _wanted_ to see him. She couldn't help that still, in spite of everything, he was the only person who could mend her world. The only one who she wanted to share it with.

Willow had never been so scared.

It was a different kind of fear than the kind she was used to. You couldn't grow up on a mouth to Hell and not become very intimately acquainted with the emotion. It was essential to survival actually, and it had evolved into a sixth sense for those who helped the Slayer. It was there in that warning feeling in your gut on a dark street, telling you when to fight and when to run. It forced you to realise the fragility of life by showing you just how close to death you could get. It gave you the will to endure. It was funny but without fear, you were without any real desire to live. It made you see what mattered.

Fear could show you who you really were. Her mouth quirked in a bitter laugh; she could thank Faith for that at least. It had made her realise that she wanted to stay here in Sunnydale, despite having the academic world at her feet. Because this was where those she loved were, where she belonged, where the good fight needed fought the most.

Fear of losing everything could make you panic.

A pained smile slipped over her lips at the treasured memory. The thought of losing your whole future could reveal the most important part of it. Fear wasn't so scary when you had someone to share it with.

But this fear was trapping. It was the fear of someone who was on the brink of losing their world and their heart. It was a foreign and unsettling entity storming inside her; violent and predatory. Forcing her into submission as it raged against its confinement, mutating into nightmares she couldn't escape. She suddenly realised she was shaking and tightened her hold on the handle to still herself. She just wanted them to stop. She wanted to feel safe again. It was time to take control of this.

With a deep breath, she pushed steadily against the door though she had received no response from inside. Not that she had really expected one. She could feel the cliff edge beckon at the tip of her toes, ready to disintegrate and drop her into the abyss below with one unlucky step. But she raised her head defiantly. She wouldn't look down. She was determined to bridge the divide; to bring their two broken halves back together again.

Veruca was wrong. Willow_ would_ fight for what was hers.


End file.
